


You Say I Need A Refill

by pickapersonality



Category: All Time Low, Bandom
Genre: Dark Side Of Your Room, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Jalex - Freeform, M/M, Some angst, i still don't know how to tag, like barely any though, they're both single
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 05:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11867373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pickapersonality/pseuds/pickapersonality
Summary: The dance floor is a place of total drunkenness, a place of surrender to synthetic, fabricated adrenaline, fuelled by alcohol and clashing lips, while the thumping, irresistible beat of the music keeps time, and the flashing lights suspend the world in that precise, perfect moment. Alex catches the eyes of Rian and Zack, and they give him easy grins before turning their attention back to their own dance partners. Jack pulls him further into the mess.-The first time is in Chicago. And soon, it becomes an exhausting, blurred mess, and Alex is lost in the game.





	You Say I Need A Refill

**Author's Note:**

> This entire thing is based off of me wanting to write something with the prompt being the entire of Dark Side Of Your Room. Enjoy my interpretation of (and probably me wrecking) it. 
> 
> Title taken from Dark Side Of Your Room by All Time Low.

The first time is in Chicago. 

They'd played a fucking awesome show; the kids had been screaming every lyric back at them, the thousands of united voices almost like an actual wave of sheer exhilaration washing over them. By the time they reached the encore, Alex had been singing twice as loudly as normal to be heard above the crowd, and by the time the final notes of Drugs and Candy were playing, and the first few of Dear Maria sounded out, he'd pretty much had to yell. 

In short, it had been mental. 

Now, Alex is sat at the bar of the place he'd been dragged to by the three other hyper members of this crazy band he belonged to, clutching a beer in one hand and checking his phone with the other. The time reads 03:42, and even by the standards of touring, that was not a smart time to be drinking and watching your friends dance with strangers across the club. But hey, he was chasing after rock and roll. 

He chuckles into the beer, rolling his eyes at himself. Wrong album, wrong tour. This time round, they had custom denim jackets. That was cool. He didn't care what anybody told him, it was cool. 

The air is tense, in a soft sort of way. It's like a living, breathing oxymoron, touring. One minute, you're up on stage, belting out song after song after song and caught up in strobe lights and screaming fans and sheer adrenaline-

and the next, you're sat at a bar in some club in Chicago, that you won't even remember the name of tomorrow, watching your friends get completely hammered. 

Mentally, emotionally, and physically, it's draining. Alex knows this better than anyone. And still, he's in love with the life. 

He's startled out of his deep line of thought by a whirlwind in the shape of a Jack Barakat, who's clutching a glass in each hand. Sweat has plastered his hair to his head, darkening the blue strip to a sort of not-quite-navy. He's wide-eyed and breathing more heavily than normal, but not quite flat-out-of-it-drunk. Which was surprising, considering that this was Jack. 

"'Lex, come and dance," Jack grins, leaning against the bar and depositing the two glasses onto it. "You look really fucking sad by yourself." 

"Thanks," Alex rolls his eyes, running a hand through his hair as he puts his phone back in his pocket. The music is quiet over by the bar, and they don't have to shout to hear each other. "Maybe I like looking really fucking sad." 

Jack doesn't say much else, he just grabs Alex's wrist, and with surprising strength (although it's not really surprising, considering the amount of times he's literally just picked Alex up on stage before) drags Alex away from the bar, to the mass of moving limbs that makes up the dance floor. And with a final sigh, Alex grins and casts away his sobering state of mind to lose himself completely. 

The dance floor is a place of total drunkenness, a place of surrender to synthetic, fabricated adrenaline, fuelled by alcohol and clashing lips, while the thumping, irresistible beat of the music keeps time, and the flashing lights suspend the world in that precise, perfect moment. Alex catches the eyes of Rian and Zack, and they give him easy grins before turning their attention back to their own dance partners. Jack pulls him further into the mess. 

Alex isn't sure why, but dancing with Jack tonight is not like dancing with Jack has ever been before. Maybe it's the afterglow of the show, the atmosphere infecting every person in the club, or the lesser amount of alcohol consumed between the two. Alex doesn't know. All he knows is that Jack is a lot closer than normal. Or maybe he's the one closer to Jack. His head is in a state of hazy disarray, and he doesn't know anything except to get even closer. 

Later, Alex will blame it on the mass of people, the crushing force pushing them together. But now, he's practically on Jack, bodies pressed together, and his hands are wandering without his permission. In the back of his mind, a tiny voice is murmuring that maybe, just maybe, this isn't a good idea. But he doesn't listen; he's never listened to that voice. 

Jack's hands find their way onto his hips, fingers pushing up the ends of Alex's t-shirt to scrabble at the bare skin, making Alex shift under his hands to press closer, impossibly closer. The air is heated around them, and there is the tiniest gap between their lips. 

Jack's hands are still pushing at the fabric of the shirt, now finding purchase on Alex's hips underneath, squeezing, and Alex doesn't care anymore, he reaches up and traces his fingers across the back of Jack's neck, watching with a coy grin as Jack's whisky eyes darken slightly. 

Alex doesn't even know why this is happening. He can't blame it on alcohol; there's barely a pint in his system. Maybe Jack's consumed more, but his words earlier were jokingly steady, and it's not like he's falling around right now. But it's happening. 

Alex pushed forward, capturing Jack's lips with his own, and the world systematically falls apart and recreates itself behind his eyelids. The kiss is fast, hot, Jack's hands sure to leave finger-shaped bruises on Alex's hips. It's like the burn of whisky but doesn't fade, an intoxicating push-pull of will and want. Alex has kissed guys before, but nothing like this; Jack is intimately familiar and yet utterly new, a sort of addicting delight that had been locked behind a glass door until now, always there but never quite allowed to Alex like this. 

A soft sound escapes from Alex's throat, and is quickly swallowed by Jack. Alex can feel the grin on his face, so he pushes harder, twists his fingers in the taller man's hair, letting the rhythm of this dance take over. 

He's not quite sure how long it lasts, before Jack pulls away every-so-slightly, and breathes in his ear, 

"You wanna get out of here?" 

And Alex nods, grasping Jack's hand and following all the way to the hotel, hands all over each other before they even get the room door open, and hoping Zack and Rian won't knock on the door of Alex's room. They'd get no reply tonight. 

— 

The morning after is a light, airy affair, consisting of Alex getting dressed hurriedly, showering off the remnants of sweat and other stickiness that he didn't want to think about, and making Jack a cup of coffee, before withdrawing back to his room silently and packing up the few things he'd taken from his bag the night before. It's like it never happened, and by the way Jack grins and jokes with him later, in the utterly platonic manner they had followed for their whole lives, that's how he wants it to stay. 

— 

The second time is New Jersey. 

It's another crazy show, fuelled by the love of alternative music created over a decade ago by none other than My Chemical Romance. The fans had screamed, danced, and Alex is pretty sure that someone fainted, so he stops the show to make sure they're okay. In true fan fashion, the unconscious girl is lifted by the nearest few people, and crowd surfed forward to the line of security before the stage. She comes to only a song later, and pretty much faints again when she realises she's now at the very front. 

After the show, Alex stops back to make sure she's okay. When she reassures him that it's been the best night of her life, she gets a picture with him, and he runs backstage to catch up with the others. 

This time, he doesn't even make it to whichever club Rian and Zack have gone ahead to trash. He's pulled away by a certain pair of arms, pushed against a wall (he's pretty sure he knocked over a bin of drumsticks, but that wasn't really the biggest thing happening in that moment), and well, that's that night sorted. 

It's over in a mess of rushed explanations over text, taxi cabs, hotel key cards, and his panting, whispering, yelling, of the same word, over and over and over and over. 

"Jack." 

— 

The third time is Oregon. The fourth is New York. Fifth, Michigan. 

By Michigan, Alex is starting to tire of this game. 

It was a cycle, a constantly-twisting-and-turning cycle of adrenaline, rushed kisses, pressed against walls and doors and bedposts. Sex. And then, the next day, and it's like it never happened, brushed away like some minor occurrence. 

But still, he plays the game. And the cycle goes on. 

— 

The sixth time it happens, they're in L.A. And this time, it's inexplicably different. 

It's early morning, about four, and Alex is sat by the pool of the hotel they decided they wanted to splash out on. After all, it's only one night. And it's Los Angeles. If there was anywhere to stay in a place with a pool, it was here. 

It's a clear night, the stars peeping through the inky blackness of the sky, like tiny rips in a blanket shielding them from a world of fire. The pool is lit underneath, the blue lights glowing through the still water. Alex is sitting cross-legged, ankles tucked underneath him as he stares up at the sky. Initially, he wanted to try and write something - it is the pretty much perfect time to get inspired and scribble down their next single - but nothing really came to mind. The notebook is laid, discarded, next to him, pen carelessly having rolled somewhere else on its own little adventure. 

Jack didn't make any moves after the show. He simply grinned at Alex, telling him where the place he was going with Rian and Zack was, and shrugged at Alex's half-assed excuse as to why he wasn't going. Then, the brunette-and-partially-blue-haired male had walked out of the hotel room door, and hadn't come back. 

In a way, it was a relief. Maybe Jack had tired of the game too. In another, in a small, unwanted way that he hated, Alex had almost wished for him to come back. 

So now, here he was, sat alone by a hotel pool in L.A, looking up at the stars. 

He'd written about the stars, the sky, before. Six Feet Under. Good Times. Both happy, if melancholy, songs. 

The footsteps were slow, gentle, as if unsure, and Alex didn't look behind to see who was approaching. He didn't have to. 

"What're you still doing out?" Jack's words were surprisingly non-slurred, for four a.m. "It's fucking cold." 

"Nah," Alex made his grin carefully casual, not even turning to look as Jack sat down beside him. "It's pretty warm, for this time. Maybe you're just delusional." 

Jack was silent for a while, as if registering Alex's words. The air was heavy with tested patience, before- 

"What the fuck are we, Jack?" 

Alex was tired. He was sick of the circles they were dancing, sick of the games that Jack was playing with him. His breath misted on the night air, a cloud of white smoke catching on the still night before dispensing to nothing. 

Jack still said nothing. 

A familiar feeling bubbled in Alex's stomach; that hot, prickly frustration, of tested confusion and annoyance. It was like the after effects of a particularly good drug, the aftertaste of something so sweet it burnt. He stared up at the stars, fingers clenching into fists, nails biting into palms. 

"Am I a notch in your bedpost?" His words were bitter, twisted. "Is that it? Cause you can't keep doing this." To his horror, his voice caught on the last words, turning from angry to vulnerable. He felt Jack turn to look straight at him, eyes boring into his own. In an act of defiance, he met those eyes with his own, hoping that some of the indisputable rage boiling through him could be projected in that look. "We can't keep fucking and then acting like it was nothing. Because, goddamn, we've been friends since forever." Jack's eyes were blank, unreadable, feeding his frustrated rage. "It is something, whether you want it to be or not." 

Whatever Alex was expecting Jack to say, it was not what he did. Those whisky eyes simply remained carefully blank, as the words knocked away the bottom of Alex's stomach. 

"Do you want it to be something?" 

He couldn't help it; Alex felt that horrifically familiar prickling at his eyes, and damn it, he was fucking crying, by a pool in L.A, under a ceiling of stars, and all because of Jack fucking Barakat. 

And Jack didn't say much after that. He just pressed forward, lightly and slowly, and kissed Alex, softly and gently and intimately, like a lover would kiss. It was searching, exploding, questioning, and all Alex could say under the weight of rushing emotion was a quiet, whispered, "Yes."


End file.
